Also, shopping around, you can get the 8.8s with the brackets for under $900. Yes, still more than the Icons, but I am not comparing to those.
This statement implies that you cannot get a discount on the Wet Sounds, which you can. 2nd, comparing the smoothness of the soft dome tweeter 8.8 to the HLCD, is like dogging an F250 for its ride quality compared to a sedan deville. On the flip side, if you want a tow mule, you cant expect the ride of a Cadi on a truck meant for towing. Totally two different speaker types. The fair comparison would have to be the Wet Sounds Icon-8 or other 8" coaxial.

Are there differences between the two types that can be compared, sure. But only to the point of determining what the boat owners tower speaker goals are. if he wants wake range projection, then he goes down the HLCD highway. If he only cares for party cove and surf sound quality, then he needs to be on the coaxial path. if he wants the best of both worlds, then he's looking at the largest pair of HLCDs you can get, the Rev-10 or at least 2 pair of large coaxials and push them to their potential. Wotan ask for opinions on an 8" HLCD and a 10" HLCD. Sure an 8" coaxial is going to sound smoother than an HLCD, but its the wrong type of speaker to be comparing against the two Woten inquired about. However, if he had framed the question like which one between the Rev-10 or xm9 would be best for surfing sound quality, the answer would the Rev-10 as well as consider an 8" coaxial.

So this tells me that either the REVs produce little to no mid/lows or the highs simply washes it all out. Perhaps removing the two REV8s and putting in the Icons would balance it out.
A little bit of equalization can tone down the compression driver. I can assure you, the 10" Rev-10 does and will produce deeper mid-bass and more mid-bass than the JL 8.8. In actuality, the 8.8 driver used on the tower pod, is the same infinite-baffle driver used for the in-boat 8.8. They do not have a "T" version as they do with the 7.7. So, placing the IB driver in a small tower pod, may actually have a negative effect on its mid-bass production.

One other comment for discussion...I would think even with more surface area, you are less efficient with a whole in the woofer than not. That's probably the location for the highest air pressure on extension of the woofer...which means it is washing behind the cone rather than pushing it all forward like a solid cone.
You'll be happy to learn, that the latest revision to the Rev series, includes a dust booth that bridges the gap between the mid-bass cone and horn flare. Non-problem solved as that gap was minimal anyway.